British Horseracing Authority delighted with 58 Site Wireless Network, Supplied by TrellisWorks.
23/04/2008
Steve Shaw, IT Manager for the British Horseracing Authority said, “We are very pleased with the work that Trellisworks have done in delivering this element of the TRICL-IV project for us. They took on the contract on a fixed price basis, prior to definitive site surveys and have come in on time and to budget. They were extremely professional and we now have reliable, secure and high speed links between the Judges and Stewards areas, allowing us to fully deploy the technology for the TRICL-IV program” The British Horseracing Authority is the governing and regulatory body for horseracing and was formed in 2007 from a merger between The Horseracing Regulatory Authority and The British Horseracing Board. In December 2004 funding was approved by the Board for an extensive IT modernization programme across all racecourses in the UK. The project was code-named TRICL (The Racing Industry's Computer Links Project) and this part of the project (part IV) was to provide a secure link between the Judges’ area and the Steward’s room, as well as to allow access to new technology, such as laptops, for the Judges and other officials to use.
At each race course there is already a Wide Area Network (WAN) link between the Steward’s room and Weatherbys in Northampton. As Weatherbys act as the racing industry’s administrators, the TRICL-IV project has the aim of expanding the use of modern technology at each race course and each race meeting, and allowing the officials better and faster access to information and the ability to send new data after each race back to Weatherbys. To allow this to happen, TrellisWorks Ltd., industry experts in wireless connectivity won the specialist task of setting up both wireless and cabled data links to connect the Judges’ and the Steward’s rooms together.
The Solution
The requirement was to set up a specific network connection between the Steward’s room (usually near the paddock/dismounting area) and the Judges’ room (usually at the top of the main stand above the finishing line), thus enabling the secure, electronic return of race results and other information. Further to site assessments, 44 of the courses required a specific wireless link and the rest could be cabled using existing ducting routes.
In each Judges’ area, TrellisWorks have installed a Wireless Access Point (AP) running IEEE802.11a/b/g to provide a wireless local area network connection for the Judges’ new laptops, supplied as part of the TRICL-IV project. These Access Points are either directly cabled down to the Steward’s room using standard CAT5 network cable or a specific wireless link has been installed to make this connection. The wireless technology used is an outdoor 54Mbps radio link, using 5.8GHz frequency OFCOM “light touch” licenced IEEE 802.11a Band C, with 256bit AES encryption for added security.
The project was started in March 2007 with and mainly completed within just six months, covering 58 out of the 61 race courses. A full trial on April 16th 2008 at Newmarket’s Rowley Mile course was highly successful and it is likely that the full project will be completed during May 2008, allowing the officials access to and use of the most modern technology.
Jim Kernahan, Director for Trellisworks Ltd. said, “This project is one of several we have delivered for UK race courses and our knowledge and experience of this environment allowed us to achieve and go beyond all the objectives set by our customer”
Author: Liza | Source:
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